Cardinal Steiner said they would like to call these women “deaconesses,” but they do not want to “confuse them with the ordained ministry,” and so, for now, they have not found a title that is “suitable.”

On the eve of the final session of the Synod on Synodality, a diverse group of women working in ministry at the margins of the church had the opportunity of a lifetime: a private audience with Pope Francis.

On this episode of Inside the Vatican, host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell are joined by producer Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to recap the first week of the synod.

At this stage of the discernment, we might ponder if the categorization of women deacons as a “Western obsession” has itself in some ways become a Western obsession.

When Catholics in the global North are “obsessed” with the issue of women’s ordination, “women who in many parts of the church and world are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored,” Bishop Anthony Randazzo said.

One South African theologian described “a deep sense of disillusionment that the church, on the one hand, is saying we need to be a synodal listening church, and has yet again taken the diaconate for women off the table.”